Improvement in tempering steel wire



W. A. SHAW. TEMPERING STEEL WIRE.

No. 90,314. PatentedMay 18, 1869.

' and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear,

diniitell fitting airni chitin-r.

Letters Patent No. 90,314., dated May 18,1869.

IMPROVEMENT IN TEMPERING- STEEL WIRE.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To whom it may concewu.

Be it known that I, WiLLIAM ANTHONY SHAW, of the city, county, and State of New York, have made a new and useful Improvement in Apparatus for Annealing and Tempering Steel Wire and Steel Ribbon;

and exact description of the same, reference being bad to the accompanying drawings, which represent a longitudinal vertical section through an apparatus made in accordance with my invention.

To enable others to make and use my invention, I will proceed to give a description of the manner in which the same is or may be carried into effect by reference to the drawing.

I first construct a furnace, A, having a tire-box about four feet long, one foot in width, and one and one-half foot in depth, though these proportions are nct ahsolutely essential. g

Above thegrate is a door for feeding this furnace with fuel. Within the-furnace is a mufile, a, made of any suitable material, which will sustain the required heat, a full red heat. A very good niufiie is made by coating externally and internally an iron-pipe, with the composition of plurnbago and clay employed for making plumbago crucibles. The ends of this muffie project beyond the outside of the walls of the furnace at each end about one inch.

About six feet distant from the above furnace, and on a line with it, is a smaller furnace of cast-iron, B, mounted on rollers. This furnace has a small aperture, b, on each side. Between the furnaces is an oilbath, or other suitable liquid bath, constructed by enclosing a metallic tube, 0, of about six inches dimeter, and four feet long, within another, 41, of ten inchesf diameter, and three and two-thirds feet -long, soldering a flange to the two pipes at each end, so as to suspend the inner, pipe in the centre of the outer one, and to leave a space of two inches around the inner and between the two pipes. These flanges render the chamber water-tight. Passing through the outer pipe, and the space between the two pipes, and leading in to the inner pipe, is a small tube, 6, which projects above the outer pipe. A pipe, f, is also attached to the outer pip'e, so as to allow of an overflow to the chamber to which water is admitted through the funnel h. 'This apparatus is mounted on a table, at a height which will bring the centre of the inner pipe on a line with the ends of the muffle of furnace A, and the apertures of the furnace B.

Situated at a few feet from each furnace, are two pairs of griping-rollers, O D, depending upon weights which are suspended from levers K, to govern the force of their gripe. In practice, a reel of the wire to be treated is brought near the griping-rollers at the left of the mufiie-furnace. One end of the wire is passed through the rollers, and thence throughthe inut'fle,

naces, the apertures of the smaller furnace, and thence between the griping-rcllers at that end, from which it passes toa reel, commonly employed and long in use for drawing wire, and which is described in technical works, in treatises on wire-manufacture.

The wire being thus arranged, and ready to be drawn through the wholeapparatus, the mufile of furnace A r is filled with pl uinbago, or powdered and bolted kaoline, prepared by subjecting kaoline to a kiln-heat, as is employed in manufacturing porcelain-ware, and afterwards grinding and bolting; or I can employ other Y powder, the particles of which will not eohere together at the temperature required, and which will not injure the wire, while it will protect it from the oxygen of the atmosphere.

To keep this powder from escaping the end 01 the muiiie, plumbago-plu or stoppers, with an aperture throughthem j ustsu cient for the wire to passthrough, are inserted in its ends, asbestos fibres, made into a plug, answer very well.

The inner tube 0, of the tempering-apparatus, between the two furnaces, is filled with oil or other desirable tempering-liquid. Water, at the required tem- "perature to govern the coolness of the oil, is allowed to flow into the funnel h, and overflow at the escapepipe f, for that purpose.

A lire is now built in furnace A, of quantity and intensity sutiicient, with regulation by the door and dampers, to uniformly heat the muflile to a red heat; a wood fire is also built in the smaller furnace.

The whole now being arranged, and the weights on the levers properly adjusted, the reel is put in motion:

at the proper speed to obtain, first, the required heat ing of the wire in its passage through the muifie, second, the required temper in its passage through oil-bath, and third, the required degree of annealing in its passage through the wood fire of the smaller furnace. These conditions are also regulated, as is obvious, by the intensity of the heat in the mufile, the temperature of the oil, and the intensity of the wood fire.

'By means of an apparatus, such as above described,

there is much saving of time in performing the work, and a uniformity of quality is attained. There is also a-saving of waste in materials usually employed in other processes to attain the same result. The apparatus is comparatively inexpensive, and adapted to the controlling of the quality of the wire, which is very essential, in order to meet the various requirements of the arts.

Having now described my invention, and the manner in which the same is or may be carried into effect, I would observe that I am aware it is not new to maintain the wire in a state of tension during its passage through the tempering-apparatus, for such method is described in English patent, No, 824, of 1857, and is the oil-tube c of the apparatus between the two fur-1 mentioned in American patents of a late date. as. for

instance, that to Henry Waterman, dated August 24, 1858.

What I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The employment, with the heating-furnace of the tempering-apparatus, of a mnfiie, containing powders or powder, substantially such as herein specified, as.

'4. The employment, with the tempering-appara tus, of griping-rollers, in combination with levers and weights, or their mechanical equivalent, for regulating the tension-of the wire as it passes through the apsparatus.

The combinationand arrangement of the heatingfurnaceand its 'mufifle, the annealing-furnace, the oilbath and .ll x f founding water-jacket, constructed as described, and the griping-rollers for regulating the Fension of the wire, substantially as shown and set orth.

In testimony whereof, l have signed my name to this specification, before two subscribing witnesses. WILLIAM, ANTHON Y SHAW. Witnesses:

I. D. Psmunnnn, 0. W. R. DISOSWAY. 

